Specialized-lululemon, a Team Worth Waiting For

It didn't happen easily or overnight, but several talented riders from HTC-Highroad eventually found a new home in Specialized-lululemon. Evie Stevens, left, leads her teammates on a mid-December training ride in California, with Chloe Hoskings at right. (Robertson/Velodramatic)

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Evelyn Stevens was out training late last summer with her teammate Ally Stacher when her phone rang. It was a journalist calling to ask if she’d heard the news that her HTC-Highroad team couldn’t find a new title sponsor and would have to fold.

She hadn’t.

“The team’s folding?” Stevens said, stunned. “I had no idea.”

Later the news would be confirmed in an email.

“It was just sad,” said Stevens, who’d worked on Wall Street before turning pro. “It was kind of comparable to Lehman Brothers. When I heard that Lehman Brothers was going bankrupt, I was like ‘No way.’ It’s not even fathomable.”

The end of HTC-Highroad, the top-ranked women’s team, would leave some of the best female riders in the world without a squad for 2012, an Olympic year.

A scramble for sponsors

Stakes were suddenly high for Kristy Scrymgeour, then a director of marketing and communications for HTC. She began searching immediately for sponsors to start up a new team. Interestingly, the motivation to begin a new outfit came in large part from the riders themselves.

“Bob Stapleton [owner of HTC-Highroad] and I told them that they were free to go find other teams,” Scrymgeour said, “but they didn’t want to separate.”

Amber Neben, the 2008 world time-trial champion, was among the HTC riders who wanted to keep the team intact.

“I signed a two-year deal last year because I wanted stability,” Neben said. “It’s difficult to change; I didn’t want to change. I didn’t want to do it during an Olympic year, and I didn’t want to do it toward the end of my career.” So Scrymgeour and the riders decided on a timeline, and she went to work to find sponsors.

One after another, the key riders from HTC-Highroad decided to hold off signing with other organizations as long as they could. Stevens, the reigning U.S. national time-trial champion, described the period as anxious.

“It was maybe not, maybe, then maybe not,” said Stevens. “There aren’t that many spots out there on the teams you want to be on.” She feared missing out on signing with a team altogether.

Specialized and lululemon sign

Fortunately for everyone involved, Scrymgeour succeeded.

“We were lucky,” Scrymgeour told Bicycling. “I called [Specialized president] Mike Sinyard and he immediately said ‘Let’s do it.’” With the company signing as a title sponsor, the team moved significantly closer to becoming a reality, but Scrymgeour still needed another major backer.

That’s where Specialized came in again, helping out a second time. The bike manufacturer suggested that Scrymgeour approach lululemon athletica, a “yoga-inspired” athletic-apparel company based in Canada, which already had a sponsorship agreement with the BMC Racing Team.

In house, lululemon was excited about cycling, especially since BMC had won the Tour de France, with Cadel Evans taking Australia’s first Tour victory. “A lot of the women there started riding bikes,” Scrymgeour said.

Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, the German national champion. (Robertson/Velodramatic)

Sponsorship agreements with Specialized and lululemon run through 2012, and the women will ride the Specialized Amira SL4.

In a big change from the Highroad years, Specialized-lululemon will be a team made up of women only. Scrymgeour supported the idea of linking men’s and women’s teams so the two could share resources, but she also sees the advantages of the new lineup, as the women will receive the complete focus of their sponsors.

“It gives the riders a lot of confidence—it gives me a lot of confidence for the sport in general too,” Scrymgeour explained. “What has happened in the past with women’s cycling … it’s not a traditional sport for women. And it’s kind of just tagged along behind the men.

“Now we can really change the sport and make it its own sport,” she said. “It’s a big job.”

Specialized’s women’s product manager, Rachael Lambert, expects the company’s involvement in women’s racing to continue for years. “It’s a major part of our DNA and our culture and I don’t see that going away. At some point, when we say we sponsor cycling, it should intuitively mean we sponsor both men’s and women’s racing. I think we’re almost there.”

World-class riders

Specialized-lululemon is heading into the 2012 season with a roster of world-class talent. Its core comes from HTC-Highroad and includes Americans Amber Neben, Evelyn Stevens, and Ally Stacher. Swedish time-trial champion Emilia Fahlin, Ellen van Dijk of the Netherlands, Australian criterium champion Chloe Hoskings, and Ina-Yoko Teutenberg—who won a bronze medal in the 2011 world championship road race—also came from Highroad.

“We had a good group and we knew we had a good group,” said Neben. “And we enjoyed the year. Not only were we successful but we enjoyed the year together, and that’s huge.”

But Neben adds that it’s a hard life too. “It looks more glamorous than it is. The biggest thing is that we will ride for each other. You have to sell out completely. It’s as simple as that.”

Clara Hughes is the team’s most notable newcomer and has won six world-championship medals. The only Canadian to win medals in both the summer and winter Olympic games, Hughes returned to cycling in September 2010 after a 10-year absence. During her time off the bike she racked up Olympic medals and world titles in speedskating.

“The only team I considered being on was this team; if they didn’t want me or it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t have been on a team,” said Hughes, who won two bronze medals in cycling at the Olympics in Atlanta. “Also, I really wanted to race with Ina.”

Amber Neben believes the bond the riders share is what makes the team great. (Robertson/Velodramatic)

Hughes and Teutenberg rode together on the Saturn cycling team in 2001, and in addition to preparing for the road race and time trial at the 2012 Olympics in London, Hughes is looking forward to riding as lead-out for Teutenberg in the sprints.

New riders Trixi Worrack, Lisa Brennauer, and Charlotte Becker add to the team’s depth. Worrack, who turned pro in 2001, is a former German national champion and won a silver medal at the 2006 world championship road race. Both Brennauer and Becker have had impressive results on the track and are hoping to represent Germany in the track events in London. Two young riders, Katie Colclough of the UK and Loren Rowney of Australia, complete the lineup.

Olympic dreams back on track

Nearly all the women have Olympic hopes. “It’s the marquee event for women’s cycling and so for me, who knows if I can get there, but I’m doing everything I can this year to try to make it,” said Stevens, who wasn’t even racing bikes at the time of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"I remember watching the opening ceremonies and thinking 'Wow, how cool would it be to be one of these athletes and be there.'"

Stevens and Neben are both on the long list for the U.S. team. The final squad will be announced in May.

The Specialized-lululemon women have also targeted the world championship team time trial, a major goal for the new season. “It’s one of the coolest events and you stand on the podium together,” said Teutenberg, the team’s road captain. “It’s such a hard race, too, and you do one thing wrong then you don’t win. I still think we will be one of the favorite teams.”

It’s not all about bike racing

As they race next season, the women will support Right to Play, a nonprofit that brings sports equipment and education to impoverished children. Stevens, Teutenberg, and Hughes have all served as ambassadors for Right to Play, and the team’s working to develop a special project of its own for the charity.

“How can we shift the lives of girls somewhere in the world?” asked Hughes, who credits involvement with sports for helping her out during her own troubled teenage years.

For now, the athletes are steadily building the foundations for their Olympic and world-championship goals. During their team training camp in Carlsbad, the women rode five and six hours a day, with one ride hitting the 200-kilometer mark.

“We don’t really need to train 200 k but it’s a fun thing to do,” said Teutenberg. “Because the paychecks are so small, really it’s the passion that motivates and drives us to do it.”

Added Neben: “That dream of being an Olympian, winning an Olympic medal, or being a world champion, those things mean so much to the girls. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.”

Scrymgeour’s optimism is palpable when it comes to the new team.

“It started as something that we just wanted to keep going for another year for the girls, but now it’s growing into something bigger. There’s a lot of excitement behind it and a lot of passion for the sport—and for women’s sport.”